The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) has demanded that The Jewish Chronicle reissue a correction to a story which made false claims about Palestine Solidarity Campaign and our director, Sarah Colborne.

The demand came after The Jewish Chronicle (JC) failed to adhere to an agreement made with the PCC that the original correction would remain on the homepage of its website for two days and two nights. After uploading the correction onto its UK News page on 23rd October, the JC then removed it later the same afternoon.

A week later, following intervention from the PCC, the JC is today (30th October) once again carrying the correction. This time, the link to the correction is on the homepage as agreed, and will remain there until 1st November.

The JC’s original story, which resulted in our complaint to the PCC, was published online on 17th July on its homepage, and was headlined Pro-Palestinian group says its supporters made antisemitic comments.

This was a completely false headline, and attributed comments to Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s Director, Sarah Colborne, which were never made.

So here's the JC's link as it appears on its homepage, The Palestine Solidarity Campaign which doesn't give much away. And here's the correction as it appears when you click on the link:

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign

In
an article published on July 17 headlined 'Pro-Palestinian group says
its supporters made antisemitic comments', we stated that the Director
of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Sarah Colborne, had said that
demonstrations against the Gaza conflict "had been used by people to
'peddle hatred and intolerance' towards Jews".

Ms Colborne had not said that. In fact, what she had said was: "The
Palestine Solidarity Campaign opposes all forms of racism, including
anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, and racism directed against Palestinians
whether living in the West Bank and Jerusalem, or as citizens of
Israel." We are happy to set the record straight.

Last updated: 11:17am, October 30 2014

If they're so happy to set the record straight why did they hide the link when they did?

October 29, 2014

Protest the Israeli-funded UK Jewish
Film Festival (UKJFF) taking place between 6-23 November in cinemas in
Glasgow, Leeds, London, Manchester and Nottingham.

Public
protest closed down an Israeli-funded theatre company at the Edinburgh Fringe.
The Tricycle, the Bristol Encounters Film Festival, artists from Sao Paulo
Art Biennial all rejected Israeli Embassy funding.

Contact
your local (or even distant) cinema by phone, email, website, leaflet or
street protest, and let them know what you think of them hosting an
Israeli-funded event. Call or write to the local press or call-in radio to
tell them what you think of their Israeli rebranding. (All cinema contact
details are here.)

One of the opening
gala nights is at the London BFI on 6 November (see below) we will protest
their collaboration with the slaughterers of the Gazan
people.

Protest @ BFI
Southbank

Thursday, 6
November 6.45-8pm

Belvedere Road, South Bank, London SE1 8XT

Tubes:
Waterloo (South Bank exit), Embankment and Charing Cross

bring your banners, placards, megaphones
& chants!

The Israeli Embassy is a sponsor of
the UK Jewish Film Festival (UKJFF). Only
a few weeks ago the Israeli state again slaughtered the people of Gaza: over
2000 killed, over 500 were children.

Destroyed
block of flats, Gaza City

We
welcomed that the Tricycle took a stand against the festival’s funding by the
Israeli Embassy during Israel’s 51-day assault on Gaza. Over 500 artists and theatre practitioners publicly
defended the Tricycle.

Disgracefully, the BFI Southbank is helping to re-brand
Israel – it’s hosting the opening gala night of the festival. Secretary
of State for Culture, Sajid Javid
– who slandered the Tricycle by implying antisemitism – said he would attend. The Israeli ambassador is also expected.

Israel’s
apologists attacked the Tricycle to try to distract the public from Gaza
while children were killed in their homes as they slept, with their parents
as they fled, in UN shelters where they were told they would be safe, in
hospitals, in mosques, while playing football: by bloodied tanks, F16s,
drones, bunker busters, sea-to-land missiles, remote-controlled machine guns
. . .

The Russell Tribunal on Palestine (Sept
2014) found that Israel committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes
of murder, extermination and persecution and incitement to genocide.

October 15, 2014

IJAN
is centrally involved in the No Israeli Funding of the
Arts initiative – we want everyone we are in touch with to
know that the Israeli-funded UKJFF (UK Jewish Film Festival) is taking place
this year (6-23 November) in cinemas in Glasgow, Leeds, London, Manchester
and Nottingham.

We have written to all the cinemas – see our
letter below – and we are asking that you contact your local (or even a
distant) cinema by phone, email, website, leaflet or street protest, and let
them know what you think of them hosting an Israeli-funded event. (All cinema
contact details are at end of this email.) Call or write to the local press
or call-in radio to tell them what you think of their not caring for the
Jewish films, only for the Israeli rebranding (see below).

Check the UKJFF calendar to find when
each cinema is hosting UKJFF films.
The opening gala night is at the London BFI on 6 November – we are planning
to protest their collaboration with the slaughterers of the Gazan people.

We are writing to you as
one of the cinemas hosting the UK Jewish Film Festival (UKJFF) 6-23 November,
2014, to ask that you reconsider.

Who we areWe are a diverse group,
including Israeli and other Jewish people, most of us local to, and often in
the audience of, the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, northwest London. In 2012
local residents leafleted the cinema to oppose its hosting of the Israeli-sponsored
UKJFF; in 2013 we protested outside the Tricycle when it again hosted the
UKJFF. (The protests were called by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist
Network.)

Tricycle / UKJFFThis year, many including
ourselves, welcomed the Tricycle’s stand against the festival’s funding by
the Israeli Embassy during Israel’s 50-day slaughter on Gaza.

The Tricycle had offered
the organisers of the UKJFF replacement funding so that the film festival
could go ahead at the Tricycle. But the UKJFF refused their offer and
to dissociate itself from the Israeli government – the priority was Israeli
sponsorship, rather than the film festival.
Is the UKJFF merely a means to a political end, to give Israel a
humanist image?

Who attacked the
TricycleThe Government’s Chief
Whip, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and the Israeli
Ambassador, each publicly attacked the Tricycle for having refused Israeli
sponsorship. They slandered the
Tricycle by accusing it of antisemitism; as did donors and local councillors
who threatened to withdraw funds and involve the Charity Commission.

Who defended the
TricycleSupport came from National
Theatre director, Nicholas Hytner, acclaimed
director Lenny Abrahamson; over 500 artists, including prominent theatre
directors and playwrights, some of whom affirmed “We artists have a right to
boycott” (letter to the Stage); and note the artists’ solidarity page: “The Tricycle Theatre is Not Anti-Semitic.

In July, Scottish artists, including National Poet Liz Lochhead, signedan open letter in The Herald protesting an Israeli-funded theatre company at the
Edinburgh Fringe. After vociferous
public protest, the show closed after one performance.

Following the Tricycle’s refusal of Israeli funding,the Encounters Film
Festival in Bristol and artists from the 31st Sao Paulo Art Biennial in
Brazil also refused Israeli funding.

What
Israel’s
apologists didWhile crying antisemitism,
Israel’s apologists used their attack on the Tricycle to try to distract the
public from Gaza: from seeing Israeli politicians, religious authorities,
journalists and the public, calling for mass rape, mass murder, even genocide
of Palestinians; from the bloodied tanks, F16s, drones, bunker busters,
sea-to-land missiles, remote-controlled machine guns, that blasted schools,
hospitals, mosques, blocks of flats, children playing football; and from the
2,200 Gazans killed -- over 500 children, and half
a million displaced.

The
Russell Tribunal on Palestine found evidence of war crimes, crimes against
humanity, crimes of murder, extermination and persecution and also incitement
to genocide.

What happened to the
TricycleEven while Gaza was being
destroyed, the Tricycle was forced to retreat. But actress Maureen Lipman,
advocating for the UKJFF admitted that they knew the depth of the community’s
support for the theatre’s stand, announcing that the festival was unlikely to
go back to the Tricycle any time soon.

That
stand reaffirmed that the arts
are social and political. It was
welcomed by anti-racists everywhere. And please note: both the local council
and the Arts Council ruled out loss of funding.

What
we want you to do
The assistant manager of the Everyman cinema insisted that “refusing to host
any arts festival on political grounds will cause more harm than good.”
(Email, 10 September 2014.) The Everyman’s is not a principled position – it
is complicity and appeasement. It is
the argument of those who refused to boycott South African apartheid.

Who
knows better than Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a proponent of cultural boycott,
who said, “We in South Africa know about oppression and occupation and know
about the power of BDS” (Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions)?

We
ask that you take direction from the anti-racist, non-violent,
Palestinian-led BDS movement.

We
ask that you refuse to host the UKJFF
– not because it is Jewish, of course, but because it is funded by the
Israeli Embassy. The embassy’s job,
especially in London (the boycott “hub”) is to promote what it calls Brand
Israel – state-sponsored propaganda, designed to camouflage Israeli brutality
within a smokescreen of culture, including film festivals.

We
ask that you side with the victims and survivors of the assault on Gaza – not
be part of the cover-up of war crimes being committed against them.

October 08, 2014

Here's a motion to be debated in the UK Parliament on Monday 13 October:

this House believes that the Government should recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel.

There hasn't been much news about the debate and I have to say I don't feel particularly moved by it but then Ive never claimed to support the so-called two state solution. But Zionists here in the UK have gone into collective panic.

The first thing I noticed was a post to Harry's Place by a chap called Stephen Hoffman. Actually that's where I got the text of the motion from. Here's what Zionists are suggesting should be done to neutralise the motion:

At end, add’, on the conclusion of successful peace negotiations between the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority.

which of course means, this House believes that the Government should never recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel.

Now the original motion is pretty weak and open to interpretation. A state of Palestine alongside Israel could be in Syria, Jordan, Egypt or Lebanon. But according to the Jewish Chronicle,

The [Zionist] activist said MPs backing the motion had been "very clever. The
motion is very blandly worded and could be interpreted as being
supportive of a two-state solution, which all key groups here support".

Yup, it's certainly bland but how could the words "recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel" be open to any interpretation other than support for a two state solution?

Ah I know, the JC very smartly avoiding quoting the motion so here it is again just in case Marcus Dysch (who else?) happens to pop by:

this House believes that the Government should recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel

Bad news for one staters like me but why is the JC so down on it it won't even show it to its readers?